


Waiting

by MoiraiThanatoio



Series: House of Odin [3]
Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Mommy Issues, Profanity, Shameless theft of supporting cast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoiraiThanatoio/pseuds/MoiraiThanatoio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is waiting for someone to tell him he's not doomed to be evil.  Steve is waiting for someone to realize he's being taken advantage of.  Neither of them is whole, but maybe they can save eachother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

Steve walked into the ground floor lobby of Stark Industries six weeks after he’d last seen Tony Stark and immediately had to stop to avoid running over what appeared to be a group of middle school children. They gave him the disdainful passing over glances common to the preteen set and kept moving. 

He looked around to get his bearings and then set out in a steady pace for the reception desk. The woman looked up from her monitors and smiled politely. 

“How can I help you today, Captain Rogers?”

“Uh,” Steve hesitated for a second. A sideways look revealed his picture on her monitor, along with a set of security shorthand and a big green ‘APPROVED’ across the bottom.

“I need to speak with Mr. Stark.”

The woman’s smile never twitched. “Of course, sir.” She reached under her desk towards a whirring noise that had just ceased. 

Her movement made Steve tense, despite the unassuming nature. His muscles only relaxed when her reach appeared to have been for a security badge, now bearing his face. A printer. It was just a printer. 

He smiled as she handed it across and gave him directions to the correct elevator and floor. “Thank you, miss.”

“Have a nice day, sir.”

The crossing to the banks of elevators was not interrupted by further schoolchildren. Instead a pair of suited men were checking access badges and explaining elevator operations when required. Listening curiously to the directions to the Fourth Floor Gallery, Steve only realized it was his turn when the guard tapped him on the shoulder.

“Sir?”

“Oh, sorry,” Steve responded, feeling sheepish as he turned around. Inclining his head slightly, the guard took his security badge and scanned it with a handheld device.

“If you’re interested, sir, the fourth floor is primarily modern art. You may also be interested in the Sixth Floor Gallery, featuring the classic masters, or the Eighth Floor Gallery. The latter is private access; just insert your card into the elevator slot when prompted.”

“No, thank you,” Steve rebutted, wondering if this was a business or a museum. “I think just lunch today.” 

He held up the paper bag he’d been holding with a shrug. The guard had no reaction, as if it was every day that someone brought the head of the company lunch in a paper bag. 

“Of course, sir. The executive elevator will take you directly upstairs.”

***

Steve was fairly sure that if it weren’t for the serum, that elevator ride would have left him nauseous. 

A red-headed secretary snapped one look at him and then thrust an imperious finger towards a corner of the room. “The loo’s over there. I’d rather you didn’t, this carpet is new.”

“I’m fine,” he demurred, stepping towards her desk wondering slightly if Tony Stark had a British secretary usually and feeling a pang in remembrance of Peggy. “I was just looking for Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah, yeah, and don’t I know it. Having to reschedule half a dozen things because you decided to stop by for lunch.”

“I didn’t…” 

Steve’s voice tapered off as the woman looked up from her computer. And was it really possible for fingers to move that fast? She raised an eyebrow at him and he went very still.

“Jarvis,” she spoke to seemingly no one. “Please introduce yourself to the Captain.”

If it was possible for silence to be sheepish, then it certainly was. “My apologies, Ms. Noble,” another British voice, this one seeming to come from thin air. “Captain Rogers, I am Jarvis, Mr. Stark’s valet. As I am fully integrated into all corporate properties, it was I who informed Ms. Noble of your arrival and intentions.”

“It’s just Steve,” he answered back, turning around. “Thank you. That made things easier…” Steve hesitated. “But, where are you?”

The secretary sighed. She stabbed a finger on her desk. “Oi, you. You hung up ten minutes ago, get out here and take custody of your soldier.”

After a lengthy beat, the door to the inner office cracked open. Tony Stark stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind him to reveal a glimpse of windows and New York skyline. Steve thought the burgundy shirt just made him look pale. There was something that made him comfortable around Tony… some sense of familiarity that was probably tied into his formal mode of dress and the sheer casuality of most of these modern people.

“Donna, darling…”

“Terms,” the secretary, Donna, bit out in response without looking up from the desk she’d returned her attention to after summoning her boss.

“Ms. Noble,” Tony corrected, perching a hip on her desk. 

She speared him with the same look and raised eyebrow she’d given Steve just minutes ago. “You have thirty, use it as you will. I’ve cleared your appointments and calls for that time period, though I am still trying to reach Monoc for confirmation on the rescheduling.”

Then, turning away again, she went right back to work. Tony, moving on, simply stood up and started walking back into his office while Steve observed, still frozen and undecided. 

“Well,” Stark prompted at his office door. “Did you bring me lunch or not?”

Steve nodded at Donna before following Tony with a few quick strides. The door to the office shut with a whisper behind him. His gaze was caught by the view. This far up, New York City was laid at their feet. The devastation was obvious, the construction everywhere. But, somehow, this height gave him something he didn’t have walking the streets… Perspective on what was still whole, where the green still flourished. 

“Unless my nose betrays me, you brought Sal’s.”

Steve broke free of his introspection to look at Tony with some confusion. “You go to Brooklyn?”

There was a pause as Stark seemed to consider and discard the first five flippant responses that rushed to his tongue. Finally, he just shrugged. “Sal’s deli? Once you know about it, you go to Brooklyn more often.”

Steve set the bag on the now clear section of table. “I owed you a thank you… and an apology.”

Tony took over the dispersion of the contents, moving things on the desk when necessary and dropping the sandwiches in their damp and slightly greasy wrappers on the glossy desk with far more nonchalance than Steve would have managed. 

“You’re welcome and apology refused.”

Steve moved forward, intent. “Mr. Stark, I misjudged you…”

Tony stopped him with a look before he could go further. “It’s Tony, I thought we got at least that far… And no apologies. Yes, you made assumptions and they were wrong. One person starts apologizing, everyone who’s ever made that call starts coming out to say they’re sorry… Honestly, I don’t have that kind of time in my day.”

His little speech ended with a far too large bite of pastrami, fresh bread, and oozing cheese.

Steve felt the flush rising into his face at the pornographic sound Tony made as he started to chew. “Who’s Jarvis?” he asked, folding open his own sandwich.

Tony’s forehead wrinkled. “Who’s Jarvis? You’re in my building and you haven’t met Jarvis? Jarvis? Explain yourself.”

“Captain Rogers and I have been introduced, sir.”

Steve looked around as the voice again came out of nothing. Tony glanced at him and rolled his eyes. 

“Jarvis is an artificial intelligence… A robot, without a body because he’s damn picky, who keeps track of my…” Tony waved his hand around vaguely.

“Your everything, sir,” Jarvis concluded. Tony just shrugged and kept on eating his sandwich. 

Steve took a moment to process this, then asked, “Like Robbie? Isaac Asimov?”

As Tony coughed around the bite of sandwich he’d been attempting to swallow, Jarvis sighed, “The comparison is quite apt, Captain Rogers. I frequently consider myself nursemaid to Mr. Stark.”

“Okay, okay, enough with the sass… Let Steve eat.” Tony waved his hand about, silently beckoning Jarvis to leave, and then pointed at Steve. “You… You are holding out. You’ve read Asimov.”

Steve shrugged, giving his own lunch more consideration. “Only a little. He had some things in Super Science Stories.”

“You let everyone assume you’re lost and confused… and you’ve got a background in classic sci fi.”

“I was a skinny little guy who liked art. It’s not like reading science stories was going to make me more unpopular. Besides, seems like all those guys had the right idea.” Steve just shrugged again, vaguely uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “Is your construction all done here?”

“Most of the damage was superficial here… and the only real delay in repairs right now is the shortage of cranes. I hardly need to borrow heavy lifting equipment from another company.” 

Tony smirked, taking another gigantic bite of his sandwich. They sat in quiet contemplation of good food, eating. 

“Does Shield know you’re here?”

Steve flinched at the question, cleaning his hands on a napkin. Tony was playing with the last bits of his food, stretching cheese and tearing the bread into miniscule fragments. 

“I’m sure Director Fury has only the best intentions…”

Tony cut him off, looking up and sweeping the trash off his desk and back into the bag. “Best intentions? The guy who manipulated us like children by falsely claiming that a respected colleague was dead? That guy? The one that could have used trust and respect and chose lies and control instead? The one who thinks I’m somehow now a threat to the world I just saved?”

“I don’t agree with all his decisions,” Steve answered. “But it got the job done.”

Tony leaned back in his office chair, swiveling from side to side as he asked. “So if you don’t agree, why stay?”

Steve’s laugh was almost bitter. “I signed myself over a long time ago.”

“Pfftt,” was Tony’s elegant reply. “Frozen in the midst of combat action? Sounds pretty close to POW status to me, case could be made. You should be retired, off enjoying yourself. I’m not saying ignore Shield if they really need you, but don’t you think you’ve earned a little Steve-time?”

“Tony,” Steve raised his hand to rub at his forehead. “It just doesn’t work that way.”

The chair stopped moving. “You really don’t know,” Tony assumed and wasn’t corrected. “You just assumed things hadn’t changed and no one bothered to correct you.” He was up and pacing a moment later. “Why correct you, this way it’s all good for them… Good for Fury and good for whoever is pulling his strings.”

“Tony,” Steve tried to interrupt.

“You, with me,” Stark instructed, moving to the door. 

Steve simply stared after him for a moment, then decided that cooperating was probably easier when Tony got like this. Whatever he wanted to share, it couldn’t hurt, right? 

“Donna!” Tony hollered, opening his office doors. 

The smile was frozen on his secretary’s face. “Mr. Stark, as I said, the CEO of Monoc Security has arrived with the final contract.”

Tony paused for only a beat, before pulling his suit jacket straight and offering his hand. “Tony Stark.”

“Donar Vadderung,” the man replied, completing the handshake.

He was older, Steve observed, but no one would mistake him for old. The dark grey suit over a pale grey shirt was monotone, but proper somehow. His blue tie only emphasized the color in his one remaining eye, the other covered by a simple black patch. 

“Your secretary was informing me that she had attempted to reschedule. No fault of hers,” Vadderung conceded. “I was in transit and didn’t receive the call.”

“I would like to say we can proceed as expected,” Stark conceded. “But something’s come up.”

“I see,” Vadderung murmured, turning his gaze on Steve. It felt evaluating, like the review of a commanding officer. “I have already signed the contract. You will find the terms agreeable, simply forward your acceptance to my office.”

“I appreciate the understanding,” Tony’s expression was far more genuine than his initial greeting.

“You would place the needs of a shield brother above those of your empire. I find you acceptable, Anthony Edward Stark.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at the odd pronouncement, “Then I look forward to doing business with you.”

Without offering anything further, Vadderung turned and left in the elevator. Almost the second the door had finished closing behind him, Donna chimed in. “That man gives me the creeps.”

Tony shook himself, an allover shiver like he was waking up. “You, no backtalk. Get the Farm on the phone. Tell them I’m bringing a new case over and I want legal’s full attention.”

Donna gave him a very pointed look, but didn’t object. “What do you want me to do with the case from Monoc?”

“Put it aside, I’ll deal with it later.”


End file.
